The gamescom 2017 - each year, hundred thousands of gaming fans gather in Cologne for one of the biggest gaming exhibitions worldwide to play the newest games, test the latest gear or simply have a great time with other fans. We’ve been in the middle of the action on all gamescom days, here’s what we’ve experienced.

Our gamescom endeavor started with the first ever bootcamp for our team, since the addition of Miikka „suNny“ Kemppi and Martin „STYKO“ Styk. After adding two new players to our lineup, we wanted to get to know each other and decided for a bootcamp during gamescom, in which we would visit the exhibition on each day until late afternoon and then practice as much as possible from our training facility in Cologne.

We treated gamescom as a kick-off / team-building event for our team, giving us the chance to further socialize with each other, while also discussing our overall game plan going forward. Right on the first day, the sixth season of ESL Pro League kicked off, and we found ourselves with three difficult opponents to play against in just one week: GODSENT, FaZe Clan & finally G2 Esports.

Decent start into ESL Pro League, but we have to improve on closing matches in our favor.

Overall we would finish 1-1 against both FaZe and G2, while losing Mirage to GODSENT, after our game on Cobblestone was crashed due to server errors at the score of 13:6 in favor of mousesports. In general a decent start into the ESL Pro League, but gamescom and all of its madness was just around the corner.

Meet & Greet experiences at gamescom

As all the years before, one of the most entertaining activities to do for professional players during gamescom is meeting with fans. With a lot of our sponsors running dedicated booths to showcase their recent products and services at the gaming exhibition, it also marks a great possibility to use their booths for special meetings with fans to talk, take photos and sign merchandise.

All Meet & Greet’s had one thing in common: they’ve made our day at gamescom.

We’ve started our Meet&Greet experience on Thursday, in a Meet&Greet powered by Dr Pepper, at gamescomCamp. The gamescomCamp offers a unique approach for gaming fans: spend the day at the exhibition, before spending your evening and night with friends and other gamers right in the camp. While most of the campers have been off to gamescom early in the morning, we’ve met quite a lot of interesting people in a very relaxed atmosphere - definitely one of the most chilled fan meetings we’ve had. Great weather, awesome people, cool drinks and T-Shirts.

On Friday, it was time to visit the ZOWIE booth. The guys at ZOWIE have been crazy supporters of mousesports and esports in general in the past and since they built an even bigger booth at gamescom this year with a dedicated FPS / CS:GO section, our two new players STYKO & suNny had the chance to testdrive the latest ZOWIE XL2546 DyAc for the first time.

Last but not least, Chris „chrisJ“ de Jong and Robin „ropz“ Kool visited the DXRacer booth on Saturday for a different challenge: fans were able to face off against the two mousesports players in a rock, paper & scissors duel, with the chance to win an exclusive DXRacer mousesports gaming chair.

All Meet & Greet’s had one thing in common: they’ve made our day at gamescom. While our schedule was tight with all the different appointments going on during the day (and practicing in the evening/night), it’s easy to get tired during a stressful gamescom day. But having the chance to meet with some die-hard mousesports fans at events like these is a no-brainer and we would like to thank all our sponsors & partners for giving us the chance to connect with fans at their booths during gamescom.

Taking care of YouTube stars with Vodafone

Before gamescom, the two famous YouTube stars Rewinside & Sturmwaffel had a conversation with mousesports on Twitter about playing against fans at the exhibition. Our head sponsor Vodafone jumped in and gave us the chance to face the two YouTube stars in a game of Call of Duty - together with 3 fans on each side.

Who’s better suited to play a game of CoD against two popular YouTubers than Dota 2 player Verros „Maybe Next Time“ Apostolos and CS:GO star Martin „STYKO“ Styk? Well, probably any decent CoD player with at least some minutes of experience in the game - but these two gentlemen would do perfectly fine against team „Rewaffel“.

Raising money for charity in HP OMEN CHALLENGE

There are only a few things, that leave professional players in fear and terror, and #OMENCHALLENGE is certainly one of these. For the second year in a row, we would be a part of the highly anticipated and unusual gaming event. In the OMEN CHALLENGE, pro players are lined up against each other, but with a twist: while they play, certain distractions will stop them from playing normal and easily put them outside their comfort zone. Viewers can vote for these distractions to happen, and players have no clue when they’re going to happen.

This year’s OMEN CHALLENGE was laid out as a tournament, with four teams battling each other in the likes of mousesports, Flipsid3, PENTA Sports and Dynasty. On three days we had our fair share of fun during the games, playing with unusual weapons, strategies, pistols only etc. On the last day, Martin „STYKO“ Styk and Robin „ropz“ Kool helped raising €10,000 EUR for the Make-A-Wish foundation in a charity match.

Sennheiser Beat The Pro challenge at Saturn

At the last day of gamescom, our Street Fighter players Ben „ProblemX“ Simon and Younes „CCL“ Lazaar went to Saturn Connect, right in the heart of Cologne for a special challenge: Invited by Sennheiser, both players saw themselves in a „Beat the pro“ matchup, in which various visitors had the change to test their skills against two of Europes finest SFV players.